I have this vision of intelligence communities as being either James Bond/Michael Westin badasses who know everything about everything, or confused 70-year-olds who haven't kept up on electronics since the invention of the solar pocket calculator._________________"Worse comes to worst, my people come first, but my tribe lives on every country on earth. I’ll do anything to protect them from hurt, the human race is what I serve." - Baba Brinkman

The Guardian reported, and UK authorities subsequently confirmed, that David Miranda, Greenwald's Brazilian partner, was detained by British authorities under an anti-terrorism law as he was in transit from Berlin to Brazil and was changing planes at London's Heathrow Airport.

One U.S. security official told Reuters that one of the main purposes of the British government's detention and questioning of Miranda was to send a message to recipients of Snowden's materials, including the Guardian, that the British government was serious about trying to shut down the leaks.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters on Monday that while the United States did not ask British authorities to detain Miranda, British officials had given the United States a "heads up" about the British government's plan to question him.

Cool, at least they're being open over their use of intimidation tactics against the press._________________Whatever happened to the heroes?

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/britain-forced-guardian-destroy-copy-snowden-material-222933670.html
...
Cool, at least they're being open over their use of intimidation tactics against the press.

Not only that, but also openly abusing inappropriate authority that's supposed to apply only to narrow situations (anti-terrorism) to do it in the case of Miranda.
I also find it kind of disgusting that they think they can control the debate by suppressing the media, in so many words even.

National Security Agency (NSA) Director Gen. Keith Alexander said that the NSA would soon be moving to cut 90 percent of the system administrator positions that it has contracted out—positions like the one previously held by whistleblower/leaker Edward Snowden—by moving to an automated cloud infrastructure. He also admitted that there may have been "compliance issues" in the way the NSA handled data collection.

Maybe this will result in more people coming out with information (read: disgruntled sysadmins) about how the government has been fucking with us._________________Whatever happened to the heroes?

A month later, the mood darkened, with a government official reportedly phoning the editor with the message: "You've had your fun. Now we want the stuff back."

.....apparently not.

Quote:

"It was quite explicit," he said. "We had to destroy it or give it back to them. What they wanted [was] for us to give it back to them. I explained that there were other copies, not within the UK, and I did not really see the point of destroying one copy. But because we had other copies I was happy to destroy a copy in London."

not even when it is explained to them.

why does this not reassure me about how securely the british governments is keeping its secrets?_________________aka: neverscared!
a flux of vibrant matter

Speaking of the MI5..._________________A cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure. It is exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied. What more can one want? ~Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

Interesting article. Of course, some would argue that we might hear of their failures, but we might never know the scale or success of their other operations. Ditto for just about every other intelligence and counterintelligence bureau in the world.

Also, I don't know if MI5 was involved in this case. Seeing as they say the destruction of the laptops was overseen by people from the GCHQ, another intelligence bureau that handles SigInt that as far as I know is separate from the MI5._________________Whatever happened to the heroes?

DECATUR, Ga. — The Atlanta metro area briefly suffered the terror of another school shooting Tuesday, but the day ended in relief.

The suspect, Michael Brandon, 20, was in custody, accused of of firing an assault rifle at an elementary school in a confrontation that forced the evacuation of 800 or more students and prompted police to return fire.

A school office worker said she talked him into putting down his weapon.